Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty stands tall at the entrance of the New York harbor in Liberty Island. It was a gift from the French people to the United States of America. The statue is a creation of the sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi based on "Libertas", the Roman goddess of freedom.

The real name of the Statue of Liberty is "Liberty Enlightening the World".

The idea to construct the Statue of Liberty

The idea to construct the Statue of Liberty started at a dinner party when a Frenchman named Laboulaye said “If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it natural if we built it by united effort”. This comment was overheard by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi who was present at the dinner party and he was inspired to build a statue that represented the Roman Goddess of freedom, Libertas.

Construction and opening of the Statue of Liberty

The construction of the Statue of Liberty began in 1875. Bartholdi built the head and the arm of the statue and then asked Alexander Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel tower) to help him make the body.

The Statue of Liberty was completed in 1884. For one year the statue remained in Paris. In the year 1885 Batholdi and Eiffel took the statue apart and shipped the pieces to the United States. A French Ship named “Isere” transported 350 separate pieces of the statue in 214 crates

The cost for the shipping of the statue was paid by the French people. The statue was put together only after one year due to lack of funds to build the pedestal for the statue.

The money for building the pedestal was raised by Joseph Pulitzer, a newspaper publisher. Once the money was raised, Richard Morris Hunt designed the pedastal.

The construction of the pedestal began in 1883 and completed in 1884. The final assembly of the Statue of Liberty was completed in 1886. On October 28, 1886 President Grover Cleveland accepted the statue from the French people on behalf of the United States.

The Statue of Liberty was officially opened on October 28,1886 and was designated as the U.S National Monument in October 15, 1924.

Statue of Liberty - Facts

The Statue of Liberty is 93 m in height from the ground to the tip of the flame and weighs about 450,000 lbs.

The statue is made of copper laid on a framework of steel. The flame of the torch is made of copper and coated with gold. The Statue of Liberty is covered in 300 sheets of copper.

There are 192 steps from the ground to the top of the pedestal and 354 steps from the pedestal to the crown.

The seven points in the crown represents the seven continents of the world. There are 25 windows in the crown of the Statue of Liberty.

The sandals of Lady Liberty are 25 feet long.

Lady Liberty holds a tablet in her left hand that has the inscription of “July 4 1776” in Roman numerals, the day of America’s Independence from Britain.